Oswego County social services commissioner to retire

Frank OrdoÃ±ez / The Post-StandardFrances Lanigan in 2003. Lanigan will retire as commissioner of the Oswego County Department of Social Services.

Oswego, NY -- Frances Lanigan, who has been commissioner of the Oswego County Department of Social Services since 2003, plans to retire in June.

She has worked for the county since June 1974. She spent all of this time in the social services department.

In her retirement, she plans to spend more time with her family, pursue a few interests she hasn't had time for and do more volunteering for groups like her church and the Child Advocacy Center.

She is a graduate of the State University College at Oswego.

One of the roughest periods of her tenure as commissioner came after the death of Erin Maxwell, the 11-year-old Palermo girl who died in August 2008. After her death, it was found she had been living in horrendous conditions and sometimes didn't have enough to eat.

Two county legislators called for Lanigan to be fired in light of the Maxwell case. Lanigan said at that time that she would resign if a state investigation concluded her department was responsible for Maxwell's death. The report on that investigation stated the Department of Social Services failed to do an adequate job handling the case, but said the department could not have prevented her death.

Maxwell's stepbrother, Alan Jones, was found guilty of her murder by an Oswego County Court jury. Her father, Lindsey Maxwell, and stepmother, Lynn Maxwell, were found guilty of endangering the welfare of a child by a Palermo town court jury and served nearly two years in county jail.